Font Licensing #89
Comments
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Looks like there are still fonts that won't make the cut for Fedora... Maybe we can provide two different builds of pyfiglet? One that only includes truly safe fonts (based on figlet precedent or clear license in the file) and one that also includes contributions (of legally grey fonts). Fedora could build one and you could continue to build and distribute the other. Code-wise it could be two separate directories and a simple environmental flag (or something similar) to determine the build. Or do you need completely clean source repos @LyesSaadi ? |
I have no issue with having them in two separate directories (maybe a |
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I had a quick play today... I think the simplest change is to create 2 new directories (say, standard and contrib) and then move all the fonts into one of those. Anything that can be shown to come from standard figlet fonts or has a suitably clear license goes into standard, while the rest go into contrib. We can then update the Makefile to build 2 different packages (one for Fedora, the other for pypi). Does that work for you @pwaller ? |
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Hi! I'm very happy to accept changes which improve the situation under your guidance. Will be quite happy if one of you is able to make a PR, the other accept it in review, then I will review it and likely merge it quite quickly. Ideally it doesn't break anyone's existing workflow too badly, so if possible (if we don't already) can we provide a message instructing the user about the situation and what they can do to rectify it? Apologies but I don't have tons of time to fault all of the state into my internal memory. Also if any of you folks know someone who would like to take on collective maintainer-ship I'd be happy to move this into an org and share ownership. Given that this project has take on more of a life of its own than I ever imagined it would, I don't like the fact it has a bus number of one right now. Really this project belongs to the community, I merely gate-keep at the moment and my cycles are limited. All the best, and thanks again for looking into this. |
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Ok! I'm happy to make the proposed change (and some extra docs)... The key questions are therefore:
I'm assuming that we need something clearly stating font distribution is allowed (for the former) and that pypi already has these fonts, so we continue to put them in the full package (for the latter), but update the docs to say we are willing to remove any if the owners get in touch. Is that right? |
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SGTM. |
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Basically, all fonts in the «Good» lists in this wiki page are fine. If a license is missing in those lists, it needs to be approved by Fedora's Legal Team beforehand. Any font that does not make the cut, but is still redistributable, could eventually be packaged in a separate package in RPM Fusion (a semi-official repository for proprietary and legally problematic packages). Also, a Makefile is not necessary, I could just remove the fonts in the RPM package myself. Still, isolating them in a What would be great as well is having a file in the root of the directory explaining under which License is each font, and also having a subdirectory with all the Licenses in it, as most Licenses require to ship a copy of it with each copy of the Licensed material. |
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Ok... Most font files have no formal license, so I think we'll be down to just the original list from figlet at this point. I'll check if any have a more legal framing in the next few days... A quick scan showed a few that might contain an MIT licence. Will let you know what I find. |
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Sorry for the radio silence... Took a while to find a free slot to look at all the files! :-) At a high level, there are various different cases:
I think the only ones that are potentially valid for Fedora are going to be the last two bullets. I'll send a separate messages about what's in each list and the type of license. The rest I will put into the "contrib" directory that will only build for pypi. |
Redistributed from figletbanner.flf |
Modified MITFiles affected are: 5x7 (extra sentence at the end of standard MIT license) License is broadly as follows: COMMENT Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy |
Dale Schumacher permissive, freeFiles affected are: clb6x10.flf License is: COMMENT Copyright 1989 Dale Schumacher, dal@syntel.mn.org |
Adobe permissive, freeFiles affected are: courb.flf License is: COMMENT Copyright 1984-1989, 1994 Adobe Systems Incorporated. |
Converted from xconsortium BDF filesFiles affected are: 6x10.flf There is no license as such, but they are all conversions from BDF files that were clearly maintained by the Xconsortium in years gone by. I did a quick google, but couldn't find anything obvious that instantly meant we should just take these. EDIT: I found the X fonts source (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/font?page=1), which looks like it contains the original bdf files. Not obvoius to me that we can just take these without effort, though, so still not recommending that we take these. |
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Net of all the above... I propose to make figlet, MIT, Dale Schumake and Adobe fonts standard and then all the rest goes into the contrib folder. Are all those OK with you @LyesSaadi ? As mentioned before, planned structure is to create 2 folders and update the Makefile to allow you to build python packages with either the "safe" or all fonts embedded in the package. README will be updated to explain this. |
All those are MIT derivatives and functionally equivalent to it, so 100% fine. The BDF files are fine if they were under a free license and are identical from there. I am still browsing the repositories to maybe find one of them. |
Wait, I just remembered something. In the US (Fedora's jurisdiction), typefaces are not copyright-able, only the code is. Who converted them? Apparently, a certain John Cowan, who seems to be active on GitHub as @johnwcowan, so he could give us his agreement 👋. And he seems to put in the font « Public Domain » as copyright, that would probably be fine for Fedora. But maybe not for non-US project (like Ubuntu) if you wish to add it later on other distros. In that case, re-licensing would probably be fine? EDIT: Even the fonts converted by Jown Cowan would be fine if they were under a proprietary License originally! |
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Here's the scoop as I understand it. (Note: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. But this is not the unauthorized practice of law, either.) The first thing to understand is the difference between glyph shapes and fonts. In the U.S., glyph shapes are absolutely not protected by copyright. It does not matter if the shape is represented by a small metal object used in a letter press, a drawing of the shape, a list of pixels, or anything else, as these can all be mechanically converted from one to another, and no new copyrightable object is created (just as compiling C to an object file does not). In particular, a BDF font (and therefore the FIGfonts derived from them) is just a sequence of glyph shapes, sizes, corresponding Unicode characters, etc. It's data, and has no element of creativity except the glyph shapes, which as I say are not subject to U.S. copyright. Now fonts as we usually understand them (TTF, OTF etc.) normally do not contain actual glyph images. Rather, the contain curves that are combined to form the glyph image, plus "hints", which are written in a special-purpse bytecode which allows a font engine to construct the exact glyph images desired. This bytecode is legally considered software, and thus is subject to the usual obnoxious life+70 (or 90 for a corporation) copyright term. (It's possible to embed a bitmap font into an OTF container; I don't know what the legal implications of that are.) There is such a thing as a design patent which protects the visual qualities of a manufactured item. If you make shoes of a specific shape, you can get a design patent on that shape, but people hardly ever do. They are hard to get, as they require the patentee to establish originality (only about 150 have ever been issued altogether) and expire after 14 years. In the UK and the EU, glyph images are subject to copyright, but the longest possible term is 25 years even if the images were registered. The X fonts have been published at least since X11R1, which was released in 1987. So as they had to be created before that, any such font copyrights would have expired by now. (I doubt any of them were registered.) Lastly, if you convert a TTF/OTF font to a BDF font, then provided you are licensed to use the TTF/OTF font, you are free to do so. It is the equivalent, legally, of printing out the characters in the TTF font on paper at a large size, scanning them, and translating the scanned pixels to a BDF font. I didn't in fact do this, but someone else could. |
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Does this give you everything you need in that PR for your builds @LyesSaadi ? |
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Licenses still need to be present in the directory somewhere (In a «license» subdirectory, perhaps ?). That is a requirement for both me and this repository (as most licenses require licenses to be shipped next to the Licensed material). That is not a requirement for files that include the license in the source code, so that removes most fonts. Though, figlet fonts only have this vague comment in them:
And, I think, if I'm not mistaken, that those fonts are under figlet's BSD License? Maybe adding it would be needed? Anyway, Fedora Legal already vetted them, so, it should be fine. |
First, I would like to thank you for your answer :D! And I see that you were already in the Figlet discussion ^.^! Anyway, thank you for clearing up some confusion. The issue is that I don't think Fedora Legal ever seemed to have said anything on that ground (and most FIGlet fonts seems not to be packaged for that reason), and I cannot go with that myself without their approval... Am I missing something? Basically, I have an issue with two comments on this discussion:
and
So, both of those are confusing. I also see you were involved in that discussion back then, so what was the purpose of changing the non-redistributable files if they were not subject to copyright? Was it just to avoid any legal confusion? Or is there a difference between
Ok! Thank you! I will try to find more information about those fonts!
Sorry, for mistaking the e-mail for the one that actually did the conversion. I quickly realized after sending the message that you were probably the creator of the program :P. PS: I also wanted to excuse myself for answering quite late, and not being very helpful in this discussion, but I am in the process of moving out, so I don't have a lot of free time... |
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That's OK. As you'll note in the linked PR, I have currently produced 2 directories (and associated builds in the Makefile):
I think at this point, we have something that could be viable for Fedora. The only remaining question is whether we can move more of the fonts from contrib to standard... Right? If so, unless we have a clear contact for that, I expect tracking down the other fonts is going to take a looooong time and so we publish what we have now and do any digging for other desirable fonts separately. Make sense? |
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I agree :) ! The changes do not seem to be too big, so I probably can push them without needing to restart the review process. I will still ask the original reviewer for his agreement. |
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Cool. Are you happy to take the PR @pwaller ? |
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Merged. Where do we stand now, is this issue fully resolved, and would it be useful to cut a release now or soon. Are either of you aware of anything else it would be useful to get in before a release? |
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My guess is that we should wait until we hear back from Fedora Legal... Then create a release that corresponds to their judgement. |
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I don't get why this wasn't already resolved. The older thread (don't have
a link available) said that Legal was already consulted about FIGlet fonts.
…On Sat, Sep 4, 2021 at 9:03 AM peterbrittain ***@***.***> wrote:
My guess is that we should wait until we hear back from Fedora Legal...
Then create a release that corresponds to their judgement.
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Are you referring to this thread: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642 ? |
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Any news? |
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#92 is a new PR which adds lots of fonts, importing them from figlet.js. Anyone have any opinion(s) on how to evaluate those for inclusion?
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Yeah - the fonts have their own copyright and license.
I wouldn't be surprised if they all fall into the last group, but someone needs to check. |
Woops, sorry for the late answer. Anyway, waiting for the holidays to end before asking again ! |
Just asked for an update! |
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Ping again. :) |
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If you are pinging me personally, please tell me what you want me to do
exactly. Thanks.
…On Wed, Feb 9, 2022 at 4:53 PM Peter Waller ***@***.***> wrote:
Ping again. :)
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Apologies @johnwcowan, this ping was directed at the filer of this issue, @LyesSaadi. Best. |
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Well, there was some discussion with someone from Red Hat recently, now waiting :< ! The discussion : https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/LBXHUVBV3HXCRJKI2E2HG5CRFM72QBEP/ |
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Okay. Let me mention that that the BDF fonts (in the contrib/bdffont
directory) are trivial derivatives of the X BDF-format fonts and so are
covered by the X license, so there should be no question about them.
…On Wed, Feb 9, 2022 at 4:57 PM Lyes Saadi ***@***.***> wrote:
Well, there was some discussion with someone from Red Hat recently, now
waiting :< !
The discussion :
***@***.***/thread/LBXHUVBV3HXCRJKI2E2HG5CRFM72QBEP/
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Feels like the wider licensing is hitting a brick wall. Shall we just accept the standard fonts at this stage @LyesSaadi ? |
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Friendly ping in case anyone has an update. |
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Sorry, I have no update from Fedora Legal, I'll try to ping them once again, and make the package with the free fonts go forward. I wasn't able to answer earlier due to personal issues and a lack of free time, but, since I'm now on holidays, I'll be able to give more time to this :) ! |
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I hope you also get some decent holidays, but thanks for taking the time for another look. No time pressure from my side, but I will keep pinging every so-often since it would be nice to see this thread resolved. |
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Agreed. LMK if there's anything I can do to help... |
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Hi @LyesSaadi I thought I'd try to reach you here rather than on the Fedora legal list. I have lost track of what you are interested in packaging in Fedora. Is it just the contents of fonts-standard and excluding anything in fonts-contrib? |
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Hello :D ! For now, only fonts-standard. It'd be hard to convince Fedora Legal to sign off on fonts-contrib. I mean, it could be proposed for rpmfusion I guess as an addon ? Also, sorry for dragging my feet, got covid and then kinda forgot about it ^^'... Will go to annoy the fedora legal list right now (edit : done). |
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Oh, just saw you were in Fedora, are you interested in co-maintaining @richardfontana ? EDIT : Or are you from Legal since you aren't a packager ? |
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Well, I guess I didn't need to send that e-mail :P! I didn't understand that you were from Legal! Anyway, thank you so much for taking care of this, with this, font licensing issues are closed, and the Fedora package will move forward 🎉! |
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Great to see this thread resolved. Is there anything else you need from this side @LyesSaadi? I'm happy to include packaging information in this repository if it makes sense to do so. Please let us know which fedora releases/repositories it is or will be available in :) |
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Nope ! It's still waiting in the review process for now. I may speed this up by asking other packagers for a review swap soon-ish. |
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IIUC, it just got unassigned, so a new reviewer is needed. |
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Yup, that's me, because the old reviewer wasn't responding. It just now is showing in the queue for new reviewers to pick up, that's why I'm waiting for a bit before speeding this up. |
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@LyesSaadi - I see that the legal block was removed, but I can't see anything moving on the original thread to add pyfiglet to Fedora (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108) which is now about to be closed due to lack of action. Are you still interested in packaging up the project? If so, is there anything I can do to help? |
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Hi ! Yes, I'm still interested, but I kinda forgot the review myself 😅 ! Will ask on devel for a review swap to pass this quickly. |
Hello :),
A while ago (nearly a year!), I submitted pyfiglet for inclusion in the Fedora repositories. It was approved, but its inclusion was aborted as I found out about all the fonts included and nearly fainted at the sight of reviewing each of these fonts licenses. In retrospect, I should've contacted you to help me with those issues, which is why I decided to do it now.
Indeed, today @peterbrittain found out by luck of our effort to package pyfiglet and let us know that all the fonts which were not distributable were removed (as per #59). That is great, but unfortunately not enough. Indeed, for Fedora, it is required that the license of each font is documented and shipped with its license. And this package has fonts... A lot of them... And most are undocumented.
I also found out thanks to @peterbrittain that there is prior art in FIGlet licensing in Fedora, and what I seem to take out from that discussion is that if the shape and appearance of the fonts themselves are Public Domain, the files still remain under a font license.
So, what needs to be done is the curation of each font file in this repository. What could also be done is the creation of a new repository containing non-free or lost fonts that users can add easily using
pyfiglet -L, while keeping safe fonts in the main repository.The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: